Hands running up the backs of her thighs now, he worked her slowly, lingering over each thrust, each wave of sensation. He could feel her whole body quivering beneath his hands as the urgency built, driving him from slow and sensual to hard and demanding. He snaked a hand over her hip again and underneath her thong. Her clitoris was swollen with need and he slicked his fingers over and over her as he plunged again and again.
Her hands fisted against the wall and he felt her knees buckle as they found their peak together. He ground into her, his grip on her waist keeping her upright as he lost it.
They were both out of breath, and he pressed a kiss onto her shoulder as he withdrew from her. He felt the loss of her warmth, and her high heels clicked on the wood floor as she straightened.
“Note to self, wear lace underwear more often,” she said as she turned around to face him.
Her eyes were cloudy with passion, and he reached out to rub a thumb along her cheekbone. Right now, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She caught sight of his watch as he withdrew his hand, and she gasped.
“We are so late,” she said. “In fact, they’ve probably given our table away.”
“Who cares?” he said. “Who says we even need to go to that stupid opening anyway?”
She swatted his hand away when he tried to see down the neckline of her dress.
“Your friend is expecting you,” she said.
Another great thing about Sophie—her loyalty. He’d bet she was the one person a friend could always rely on, no matter what.
“I know. We’ll go to Harry’s Café de Wheels,” she said.
“God, I haven’t been there for years,” he said, flashing back to his old drama-school years.
“Come on.”
They found a park right out the front of the Woolloomooloo wharves and stood in line to place their orders at the window of the brightly painted pie cart that had become a Sydney institution after nearly seventy years of operation.
“S’good,” Sophie murmured around a mouthful of buttery pastry, and Lucas repressed the impulse to ruffle her hair affectionately. Just twenty minutes ago she’d been driving him wild with her earthy sensuality, but now she looked like a well-dressed urchin, with a paper napkin tucked into the neckline of her dress to prevent disasters as she ate a hot meat pie with lots of tomato sauce.
“Don’t tell Derek I fed you a meat pie,” she said. “He’ll sack me for making his meal ticket blimp out.”
“What Derek doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he said. He frowned as he remembered the conversation he’d had with Derek while they’d waited for the doctor this afternoon.
“Be careful with that one,” Derek had said, from which Lucas had assumed he meant Sophie.
He’d remained silent, not wanting to discuss her with Derek, but it hadn’t stopped his manager from wading in.
“I mean it, Lucas. She’s not one of your usual women. You make sure she knows the score when you walk away. I don’t want to have to handle her, and the last thing we want is some tell-all in the tabloids.”
Derek’s comment had made Lucas see red. He’d rounded on his manager before he could stop himself.
“Don’t talk about her ever again, okay? She’s not someone you are ever going to have to handle.”
Derek had taken a step backward and held up his hands as though Lucas had pulled a gun on him.
“Chill, man. I’m just doing my job,” he’d said.
But neither of them had mentioned her name again.
Now, Lucas wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked back to his car. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks.
“God. I just realized—are there going to be reporters there?” she asked uncertainly.
“Yes. That’s kind of the whole point of me going. Adele wants the publicity.”
Sophie bit her lip. He reached across and caught her hand.
“I’ve already got it covered, don’t worry. We’ll go in separately. That way they won’t know we’re together,” he suggested. “You won’t have to deal with them.”
“I was thinking about you. About…you know,” she said.
Running the gauntlet of the paparazzi could be daunting at the best of times, and it would be a totally new experience for Sophie. But she wasn’t nervous for herself—she was worried about him, because she knew he bitterly resented what the biography had done to his private life.
“Tonight will just be photographers,” he assured her. “No one knows I’m coming.”
“Okay. Good.”
She was looking relieved. For him.
For the first time he had an inkling of just how lucky he’d gotten when Julie Jenkins approached Sophie to be his private chef. She was one in a million.
And in another week’s time, he was going to let her go, the way he always let his women go—easy, with a smile.
Which probably made him the world’s biggest fool.
14
WATCHING LUCAS ARRIVE at the opening made Sophie feel like Alice through the looking glass.
Standing to one side near the entrance of the gallery, watching the flashes pop and the photographers jostle for position, she experienced a surreal sense of vertigo. Had she really slept with the stunningly gorgeous man climbing out of the Porsche and onto the red carpet? Had she really threaded her fingers through his dark hair and caressed his tall, hard body?
It simply didn’t seem possible when he was standing here, the center of everything.
Unable to look away, she followed his progress along the red carpet and into the gallery as avidly and hungrily as everyone else. When he was gone, it felt as though the night grew a little darker, the air a little colder.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she considered her enormous folly in thinking she could dally with this man for a few weeks and walk away unscathed. Had she been insane? The man was a walking, talking god. Of course she was going to become infatuated with him. It had been inevitable.
“Idiot,” she said under her breath. She’d been saying that to herself a bit lately, she’d noticed. Probably because she’d been behaving like an idiot.
“Lucas asked me to come out and escort you in.”
Sophie swung around to see Derek standing there, looking none too pleased with his babysitting duty. She felt the weight of his gaze as it dropped to her breasts, and embarrassed heat rush up into her face as she remembered how he’d found her with Lucas’s hands up her top in the garage this morning.
“Nice dress,” he said as she fell in alongside him.
She knew exactly what he was thinking: that Lucas had bought it for her. She felt the need to correct him, but she stopped herself. Derek had nothing to do with her and Lucas.
“Before we go in…” Derek said, halting just inside the doorway. “I hope you’re not taking Lucas too seriously, Sophie. Don’t expect him to hang around, or call you after a few weeks to ask you to fly out to join him on set or something crazy. He doesn’t work like that. He doesn’t do relationships. Okay?”
Sophie eyed him steadily but didn’t say a word.
“I mean it. Don’t think you’re in line for a wedding ring or something ridiculous,” Derek said, frowning at her nonreaction. “Lucas has a lot of women in his life. A lot. And, not to put too fine a point on it, some of them are real stunners. Just a word from the wise.”
She wasn’t quite sure where her calm came from; perhaps from her outrage that this man had taken it upon himself to warn her off so dismissively. He’d managed to call her deluded, unattractive and disposable in the space of a few seconds. What a gem.
“Are you finished?” she asked.
Derek shut his jaw with a click and Sophie shouldered her way through the crowd.
She should have taken Derek’s little pep talk as a sign that her evening was about to take a turn for the worse. Inside, the gallery was full of beautiful people, all of them glittering and tall and slim. Instantly her very expensive dress became very average,
and she felt painfully aware of her every flaw—too short, too curvy, too redheaded.
This is why I don’t read fashion magazines, she told herself as she stared at a rail-thin, painfully gorgeous woman that she recognized as a top international model. It was simply not possible for her to stand in the same room with so much perfection and retain a grip on her own self-esteem.
Switching her attention from the people to the artwork, Sophie’s heart sank further. More brutal, bright modern art—lots of blobby paint, smears and asymmetrical patterns. Not her cup of tea—but then, she was hardly the market she realized when she saw a price list lying abandoned on a nearby table.
“Sophie,” Lucas said, and she turned to find him bearing down on her, two champagne glasses in hand. After he’d handed one over, his fingers closed around her elbow. “Where were you? I was worried.”
Instantly she was warmed by his attention. “Sorry. I was a little freaked out. It’s pretty crazy out there.”
He smiled sympathetically and squeezed her elbow reassuringly. “Have some champagne and you’ll feel better.”
She followed his advice, but it didn’t make much difference, especially when Adele—another beautiful person—sailed over and grabbed Lucas, dragging him off to meet someone. To his credit, Lucas came straight back to her, and the next time Adele drew him away he towed Sophie with him. But no one was interested in talking to her. After Lucas introduced her, they inevitably gave her a polite smile and a quick head-to-toe before turning all their focus on him. Plus, she knew nothing about art. Nothing, nada, zilch. And since all the conversation was about Adele’s work and how it “talked to the schism at the center of the disjuncted self,” she was reduced to nodding occasionally and shifting from foot to foot to ease her aching toes.
After an hour she told Lucas she was going to the bathroom and slipped off into the crowd. It took her a good ten minutes to find someone who looked unglamorous enough to be staff so she could ask where the ladies’ was, and when she came back to Lucas he was surrounded by a group of laughing men and women. She recognized a politician, a television star and an up-and-coming singer among them. Rather than elbow her way back to his side, she found an inconspicuous space along the wall and leaned against it, taking turns easing first one foot and then the other out of the torture of her shoes.
If only Adele hadn’t followed up with Lucas’s invitation, we’d still be holed up in our own private little world in the Blue Mountains, she thought wistfully. She grimaced at the childishness of her own thoughts. Maybe Derek had been right to warn her off, after all.
“Come on, we’re going.”
Sophie glanced up from studying the squashed and maimed toes of her left foot to find Lucas standing in front of her.
“Sorry?” she asked stupidly, sliding her foot back into her shoe and straightening.
“We’re getting out of here,” he said.
“What about Adele?” she asked, even as her heart soared with relief.
“I’ve done my bit. She’s got her publicity. Come on.”
One arm around her waist, he steered her through the crowd toward the doorway the caterers had been swinging in and out of all night.
Weaving past the catering staff, they exited the kitchen door and found themselves in the alleyway behind the gallery.
“This way,” Lucas said, tugging her to the right.
She tried to keep up with him, but her killer heels had reduced her to hobbling by now and Lucas finally registered her discomfort.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Blisters. And I think all my toes are dislocated,” Sophie said, eyeing the pointy toes on the stilettos ruefully.
Lucas looked guilty. “That’s probably my fault. You warned me you don’t usually wear heels.”
“They’re beautiful shoes,” she said diplomatically. “And I wanted them very badly.”
Presenting her with his back, Lucas looked at her over his shoulder. “Hop on.”
She stared at him.
“Come on, hop on, or it’ll be three in the morning by the time we make it back to the mountains.”
“We’re going back tonight?” she asked, surprised.
The original plan had been for them to stay the night in Sydney and drive back to the Jenkinses’ estate the next day.
“You don’t really want to stay in the sensory deprivation tank, do you?”
He was referring to his white-on-white apartment, and since he’d already guessed her feelings, she was free to be honest.
“Not really.”
“Then giddyap.”
Shaking her head at his silliness, she looped her hands around his neck and hoisted herself onto his back. His hands hooked beneath her knees and he started up the alleyway with a firm, confident step.
“I’m not too heavy?” she asked. He had just come off crutches, after all.
“Sophie, you’re practically a midget,” he reminded her.
Leaning forward, she inhaled his aftershave and pressed her cheek next to his.
“I could get used to this,” she said. In truth, she was touched by his consideration. He’d cut out of the opening early, and now he was driving her back to the estate because he wanted her to be happy and comfortable. Out of nowhere, tears pricked at the backs of her eyes and she tightened her grip around his chest, hugging him to her.
“Everything okay back there?” he asked as they neared the main road where his car was parked.
“Sure,” she said, blinking the silly tears away.
“Let me just check to see if there are any photographers still lurking,” he said. “Usually they bugger off after everyone has arrived.”
Attempting to keep a low profile, he ducked his head around the corner.
“Looks like the coast is clear.”
Sophie burst into giggles.
“What’s so funny?”
“Kind of hard to be subtle with me on your back,” she said, imagining how ridiculous they must look.
They were both still laughing as they approached his car and a large bus whizzed past in the narrow street, generating a strong gust of wind in its wake. Startled, Sophie felt the back of her skirt fly up, and she had a sudden mental image of her lace-thonged butt being displayed to the world as she rode piggyback on Lucas Grant’s back. Whooping with alarm, she pressed a frantic hand behind herself, desperately trying to hold her skirt down while laughing at the same time over how insanely foolish she must look. The flash of a camera caught them both by surprise. His grin fading abruptly, Lucas let her slide to the ground as he turned to face the lurking paparazzo.
“Who are you with?” he asked, his handsome face dark and uncompromising as he approached the guy.
The photographer lay his hand protectively over his camera. “The Daily Telegraph,” he said.
“I’ll give you five thousand for the picture,” he said.
Sophie nearly choked. Was he kidding?
“Do you know what this is worth on the international market? U.S. rights alone…?” the photographer said.
“Fine. Tell me what you want, my manager will make sure you get it,” Lucas said.
Sophie could see the tension in his body and she stepped forward. “Lucas, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You’re not up for grabs. You didn’t choose this.”
“One picture of you giving me a piggyback is not worth tens of thousands of dollars,” she said.
“Hundreds of thousands,” the photographer interjected helpfully. “Plus there’s the photo credit.”
Lucas had been focusing on her, but now his gaze swiveled around and fixed once again on the paparazzo.
“How much?”
“Lucas,” Sophie insisted.
His gaze was dark with anger when he glanced at her. “Sophie, stay out of it.”
“Sophie. Nice name,” the photographer said, and she realized they’d just given him a caption.
“How much?”
But the paparazzo just sm
iled and shook his head. “It’s not for sale. Sorry. I’ll be able to pay my mortgage off with this baby.”
A muscle clenched in Lucas’s jaw and he took a menacing step forward. Sophie scrambled to place herself between him and the suddenly nervous photographer.
“Lucas. Look at me,” she said, staring at his face until he met her eye. “Forget it. I don’t care. Okay?”
His gaze remained dark and troubled for a beat, but then it cleared.
“Let’s go home,” she said quietly, placing a hand on his chest.
“Home. Right. Where’s that?” the photographer asked hopefully.
Sophie swung around so sharply that he took a step backward.
“Don’t push your luck, buddy,” she said.
When she turned back, Lucas was smiling again.
The photographer got off more shots before they drove away, but neither of them paid him any attention. As they turned the corner, Sophie looked over her shoulder and saw the paparazzo scrambling to get into his car.
“I think he’s going to try to follow us,” she said.
“Try being the operative word,” Lucas said, easing his foot down on the accelerator.
They were close to the on-ramp for the freeway, and within seconds they were racing away at high speed, the wind whipping through their hair.
“What a dick,” Sophie said after it became clear that the photographer had a snowball’s chance in hell of catching them.
“No. Dicks are useful. He’s a shit,” Lucas said.
She shot him an amused look. “Thanks for defending my honor back there.”
He shrugged. Settling down into her seat, she reached across and rested her hand on his thigh. After a few seconds, his hand pressed down over hers.
She was asleep, her head resting on his shoulder, by the time he drove up the darkened driveway of the Jenkinses’ estate.
Sophie stirred and stretched as he pulled into the garage.
“That didn’t take long.” She yawned, pleased to be back.
“That’s because you snored most of the way.”
“I do not snore,” she said, then she let out a yelp of surprise when he scooped her up into his arms and strode toward the house.
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